Paintings and Sculptures

17. November 2018 - 13. January 2019

Curator: Mária Horváthová

Sculptor Milan Lukáč is one of the most well-known artists in Slovakia and his name resonates in a wider European context, particularly in France and Austria. Thanks to the universal language of his paintings and sculptures he can address a broad audience because his work conveys convincing testimony of the state of the world in its endless forms and shapes. Sometimes it has an eminently intellectual and even philosophical charge with distinctive human overtones; at other times it interprets the fragility of interpersonal relations, but frequently it casts a lighter view of the endless realm of nature, its mysteries and its metamorphosis.
From the beginning, his sculptures found their general counterpart in monochromatic paintings whose monumental impression attract attention particularly by their pure lines, well balanced verticals and horizontals and moderate use of colors and calligraphic elements.
His sculptures are created in different dimensions and are full of serious and humorous stories. At first, they were figures and portraits, later elevators and staircases with typical silhouettes of figures and the tragic undertone of lived human dramas; this was followed by fragile and trembling vertical steles with the theme of Botanický sen / Botanical Dream, followed by bizarre creatures from his Beštiáriá / Bestiaries, from which it was just a tiny step to a wide scale of impressive zoomorphic creations – fish, birds, owls, heads of goats and wild boars which captivated him for a long period of time. This is where he applied his creative principle in which he combines, in assemblage style, bronze and welded iron along with used and found metal objects, work tools and fragments of various machines. And it is these fragments, in which we with certainty identify old brass door handles, candle holders, screws, as well as mattocks, shovels and skeletons of sewing machines, which imbue his sculptures with sensual poetics, playfulness and fine irony.
Lukáč’s sculptures are full of motion and dynamics, in daring curves they hover, tremble and wave in space, seemingly defying the laws of gravity as they head toward new challenges.

Biography

Milan Lukáč was born on September 29, 1962 in Bojnice. From 1981 to 1987 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava (under prof. Ján Kulich and prof. Ladislav Snopek) and from 1985 to 1986 at E.N.S.B.A in Paris (under prof. Jean Cardot). He has participated in internships at Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, Niort, Madrid, and Vienna and in many symposiums at home and abroad. He has also taken part in many domestic and foreign solo and collective exhibitions. He won the Award for young sculptors from the Académie des Beaux-Arts, Institute de France in Paris (1985), the Martin Benka Award (1988), the Paul-Louis Weiler Portrait Prize (1990) among others and his works are represented in public and private collections at home and abroad. He lives in Bratislava where creates sculptures, drawings and paintings and teaches at the university. He has created numerous monumental works, memorials and monuments.